A Study On The Old, Same Old

As family life stabilized, marriages became lifelong commitments and patriarchal values increased in importance.Women and children with their lack of rights were dependent on the father and husband, or patriarch, of the family. Therefore, the members of the family did everything

An important development that distinguishes civilization from even the most advanced societies that preceded was gender inequality. For example, in the new societies, males were considered superior towards females. The text states, “the patriarchal ideal regarded men superior to women and sons preferable to daughters”(page 73). The text displays that women were second priority. This development is different from previous Paleolithic and Neolithic societies

Women have played important roles throughout history. They have been responsible for the rise and fall of nations, sustaining families, and have been the focal point of worship in ancient religions. Moving forward in history, women's roles have continually changed. Their status as matriarchs changed as the more advanced ancient civilizations rose. The patriarchal societies of ancient Greece and Rome viewed women differently from some societies of past eras. The study of the economic and political status of women, their rights, and their contributions to both these ancient societies reveals how views change throughout history.

There are many ways that an archeological site can be observed, for example, aerial photography such as satellite pictures can be used. Also when carrying out an excavation on a low budget, which is very common in most cases, a low-flying kite can replace the satellite (Roskams, page 43). More recently the more common availability and use of drones could also be used to get live aerial data from above. Many sites are more apparent from above, and New Kinord is a great example as you can see some of the stone circles clearly, see figure 2 below.

A week ago I found myself reading Patricia Hill Collins, “It’s All In the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation” and it made me reflect on the ways in which both gender and race are socially built out of distorted interpretations of family. Collectively constructed as opposed to an innate understanding. We have grown dependent on dysfunctional projections of family, giving rise to a hierarchy which aims to serve all: “…a male headship that privileges and naturalizes masculinity as a source of authority…mothers comply with fathers, sisters defer to brothers, all with the understanding that boys submit to maternal authority until they become men.” (Collins 159) The commitment towards this flawed assemblage of characterizations, has in a way, normalized the social hierarchy. However, this expectation has become unrealistic. Many females find that they are not adequately prepared to survive in a male dominated country, although there is little rebellion against these imposed values.

Some aspects of the lifestyle ancient civilizations lived almost seem appalling or intolerable when compared to the very developed and carefully shaped the world inhabited today. One of these characteristics of previous societies that prove to be rather challenging to conceive in current times consists of the lack of rights, privileges, and equity women had. Society maintained this assumption of a man’s superiority up until the women’s rights movement of the early twentieth century; yet with the two sexes essentially equal in America today, imagining a restricted life as a female proves unfathomable. Looking back at the history of human kind, men almost always subdued women and treated them as property. When focusing on the first

In a dystopian timeline the UT Vols have had two consecutive no win seasons and the town of Knoxville, TN is completely abandoned. Over time the city begins to feel the effect of weather, decay, and bioturbation. It isn’t until 500 years after evacuation that archaeologists return to the city to study the lives of the people who once lived there. During an excavation these professionals find two plastic bins filled with artifacts. Their goal now is to understand what the purpose and function of these artifacts are and what they can tell about the people who owned them. However, due to the nature of time passing, changes have occured in these items and others have been completely removed from the archaeological record. These occurrences will

1. What is a patriarchal society? In what ways do the different civilizations we have studied exhibit patriarchy and how did they reinforce it (hint: Hammurabi’s code, Chinese philosophy, Ancient

Women's lives, roles, and statuses changed over various early world history eras and culture areas in many ways. Ancient Persia, Paleolithic, Athens, Mesopotamian and Roman eras were all different in very unique ways. The Paleolithic era treated women fairly and were treated equally. During the Neolithic era women were not treated fairly. She was the daughter of her father or the wife of her husband. Women rarely acted as individuals outside the context of their families. Those who did so were usually royalty or the wives of men who had power and status.” (oi.uchicago.edu, 2010) Athenian women were not treated fairly

Then in society, men were portrayed as “dominant figures” and women were the “nurturers”. Men not only filled the fatherly role but they also usually earned the “breadwinning”, went to work all day, and financially provided for the wives and

Although the societies were traced matrilineal and women did have authority, it’s important to recognize that this was not absolute if the chief of the villages were

Amongst societies, there is a great variety of means of survival, all of which are dependent upon factors influencing the community—geographical location and structure of authority, to name a few. Such factors and the community’s ways of survival create the underlying basis of other complex issues, including the relationship between the sexes. Many anthropological papers that concentrate on the modes of production of specific groups of people have shown a connection between the modes of production and the presence or absence of gender inequality. Futhermore, there is also evidence of a further causality between the two: as a society adopts a more complex mode of

Patriarchy usually means a family that is male-dominated and headed by the father. It is a social construct in which men and masculine roles are considered to be absolutely superior to women and feminine roles. A society is considered patriarchal when it is male-dominated, male-centered, and male-identified. Being a male-dominated culture means that positions of power and authority in the political, economic, legal, religious, domestic, educational, and military spheres are usually reserved only for men. Male-identification means that a culture’s ‘normal’ way of living is based on men and their lives. Male-dominance means that the culture has been shaped by men in a way that mostly serves male interests. Patriarchal societies are male-identified because their core ideals concerning what is morally right, desirable or normal are connected with how they think about masculinity or men in general. They are always male-centered, with the culture’s focus is

History is a collection of stories, and stories can often differ from the facts. This is because the past can often be distorted and only show certain aspects deemed important. Historian Peter Laslett is frustrated by this and describes in his paper “The World We Have Lost” how the pre-industrial society has been forgotten. Society has mostly been patriarchal in human history. Each household contained roughly 10-20 people, ran by a male master, housing his wife, children, apprentices, and servants. The group was considered a “family” and usually worked together producing a singular product as well as maintaining the household. Land owning men ran the world and hired those who were less fortunate. Today however, families now consist of related individuals that live separate lives with separate beliefs. Should patriarchy stay in the past or should it be adopted into modern life? I believe that Laslett’s “lost world” was abandoned for a reason and should stay lost due to the modern ideas of choice, change, and culture.

Throughout the course of human history, societies worldwide tend to follow a specific pattern of male domination in politics, economics, and culture. From the earliest city-states of Mesopotamia to the massive empires of China and Rome, women were forced to take a limited role in society. This systematic oppression of women is indicative of a patriarchal society, in which “women have been subordinate to men in the family and in society generally” (Ways of the World 59). Though these civilizations share the characteristic of male supremacy, each had different practices governing interactions between the genders. Each society had a unique idea of exactly what rights women were afforded and how the patriarchy was enforced. The Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Greek civilizations were undeniably patriarchal, but how the dominance of men was expressed varied between each society.